NEW ‘Connections’ Hints and Answers for Sunday 29th December

Are you looking for tips and answers to Saturday connections instead? You can find them here:

ForbesNEW ‘Connections’ Hints and Answers for Saturday 28th DecemberBy Chris Holt

Hey guys! I hope you enjoy the last weekend of the year.

I’m not much of a believer in New Year’s resolutions, but maybe you’ve started thinking about yours (and I wish you the best of luck with them!). I wonder how many new gym memberships will be abandoned in a few weeks.

Before we get started, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other people. I’m always interested in finding out how other people approach the game, so join in! It’s funny.

It’s also the best way to give me feedback on the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions when I screw something up.

Today’s NEW Connections advice and answers for Sunday 29 December will come straight up.

How Connections plays

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on NEW website or game app.

You are presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by finding out the connections between them. The groups can be things like clickable items, names of research study participants, or words with a body part in front.

There is only one solution to each puzzle and you have to be careful when it comes to words that can fit into more than one category. You can mix up the words to perhaps help you see connections between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the hardest. The purple group often involves puns.

Choose four words that you think fit together and press send. If you guess and you’re wrong, you lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you may see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with some tips and if you’re really struggling, today’s is Connections answer. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chat.

If you have one NEW Free access or Play subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections file. This includes all previous games of Connectionsso you can go back and play any of them you missed.

Apart from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my tips for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

What’s today’s hookup tip?

Roll slowly! Right after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I will reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you what words are included in them.

Today’s 16 words are…

• BEACH
• DATE
• LOCK
• CHERRY
• FUR
• MARUON
• TIME
• COUPLE
• BEACH
• MAIN
• LOCATION
• BRICK
• DURATION
• YOU
• RUBY
• WISP

And hints for today Connections groups are:

• Yellow group – blood and cardinal would fit in here
• Green group — important information about calendar entry
• Blue group — toupers or not toupers, that is the question
• Purple group — lichen like these and leaf

What are today’s connection groups?

Do you need a little extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to come in spoiler territory.

Today’s Connections groups are…

• Yellow group — shades of red
• Green group — appointment specifications
• Blue group — different amounts of hair
• Purple group — wood homophones

What are today’s connections answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll down the page any further until you’re ready to find out about today Connections answer.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections the answers are…

• Yellow group – shades of red (MOLD STONE, CHERRY, MAROON, RUBY)
• Green group — agreement specifications (DATE, DURATION, PLACE, TIME)
• Blue group — different amounts of hair (HEAD, LOCKS, STRAND, WISP)
• Purple group — wood homophones (BEACH, FUR, PAIR, YOU)

Not a perfect game today, but that makes it seven in a row for me. Here’s how I managed:

I hope these clues made sense because god I was annoyed after making so many mistakes.

I was troubled by a red herring when I went with a guess at STRAND, BEACH, MAROON and BRICK. I wasn’t close to a group there. Damn it.

However, I got the greens after changing strategies. The yellow ones stood out so much to me after I drew a link between CHERRY and RUBY.

I had pretty much the right idea for the blues, but I thought of it more in terms of more general head and hair related stuff. So I made a guess that included FUR, which was fair enough. But my third mistake involved BEACH. I have no idea why I thought that made sense.

Alas, I eventually realized the error of my ways and got the blues. That left the purple for the win. I kicked myself for not making that connection and not sticking to the tried-and-true strategy of reading all the words out loud to check for homophones.

That’s all there is to it for today Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for tips and the fix for Monday’s game if you need them.

PS When I’m ticked off, the quickest way for me to shake out of that funk is to dance it out. I fire up a random selection from my mega-playlist, get off my butt and dance for a few minutes.

That’s my recommendation for today: dance it out. Whatever stress or worry you’re dealing with, play an upbeat song you love and dance to it. I swear it makes things better, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Have a nice day! Make sure to drink enough water! Call someone you love!

If you are so inclined, go for it follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other puns and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me a lot! Also follow me further Blue sky! It’s fun there.